The Blankenberg / Ahrensberg Family

Moses Moritz Blankenberg (b. 1872) and his wife Else, née Steeg (b. 1883), ran a clothing and shoe store in Hameln until the national boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933. In 1936, the couple purchased a house on Eichstraßein Hannover.

Their daughter Anni (b. 1905) and her husband Hugo Loebenstein (b. 1894) operated a textile business in Eldagsen. After the “Night of the Broken Glass” (German: Reichskristallnacht), Hugo was taken into preventive detention, and the business was closed. The Loebensteins emigrated with their son Helmut (b. 1930) to the USA just in time.

Their son-in-law Philip Paul Arensberg (b. 1906) from Alverdissen, husband of the younger Blankenberg daughter Lotte (b. 1906), was arrested for alleged usury in 1933. He only was released after a high “reconciliation payment” and the conveyance of his quarry to the government. The Arensberg family subsequently moved to Hannover - probably in the hope to find protection in the still large Jewish community. Before their deportation, the couple and their children Walter (b. 1931) and Tana (b. 1939) lived with the Blankenbergs.

The grandparents Blankenberg fell victim to “Operation Dünamünde” in March 1942. Lotte, Walter, and Tana Arensberg were deported from Riga to Auschwitz and murdered in November 1943. The last trace of Paul Arensberg vanished in November 1944 in the concentration camp Natzweiler.